Analysing News Framing of Sexual Violence: A Multidimensional Conceptual Model

Research on news framing of sexual violence is constrained by a persistent conceptual problem: analytically heterogeneous categories have often been treated as equivalent frames even though they designate different objects and levels of interpretation. This slippage reduces conceptual and diagnostic precision. Drawing on a critical narrative review supported by structured searches of Scopus and the Web of Science Core Collection and theoretically guided purposive selection, this conceptual article develops a multidimensional model of news framing. Theoretically, rather than adding substantive frame labels, it distinguishes three dimensions of framing—event, actor, and societal-response—according to the primary object upon which interpretative operations act. Methodologically, it provides a proposition-level procedure for distinguishing framing objects, interpretative operations, discursive devices, and attributed voices, and for reconstructing their relations as broader interpretative configurations. This makes visible how propositions across dimensions may co-occur, reinforce, qualify, or contradict one another. Its analytical value is illustrated through post-#MeToo news reporting, where structural definitions of sexual violence may coexist with selective distributions of credibility or the delegitimation of institutional reform. Without reducing multidimensional discourse to a predominant frame, the model supports transparent qualitative, quantitative, and comparative analysis while clarifying how journalism constructs recognition, credibility, responsibility, and legitimate responses.